COLOMBIA SAYS ONE BATTLE WON IN WAR ON DRUGS

BOGOTA - Colombia, the world's largest supplier of cocaine, said
yesterday that new evidence showed the harvest of coca plants dropped
by a record 30 per cent last year, a finding it hailed as a major
victory in the United States-backed war on drugs.

The data came from a United Nations study, which was based on
satellite imaging taken on December 31, 2002, and showed a far more
dramatic reduction in drug crop production than was seen in an earlier
US survey.

President Alvaro Uribe has pleased the US since he took office in
August by dramatically increasing the pace of a US-funded drug
crop-spraying programme.

"Uribe's pledge to permanently eradicate coca from our territory is
irrevocable.

"It isn't about dealing with a problem, but ending a nightmare for the
Colombian people," Interior Minister Fernando London said at a joint
UN-Colombian Government news conference in Bogota.

Most of the 42,736ha fall in coca production was due to the forced
eradication campaign. The hectares removed from production would cover
an area more than double the size of Washington, DC.

The reduction in land used for coca production slashed Colombia's
cocaine output by 22 per cent to 480 tonnes, compared with 617 tonnes
in 2001, said Klaus Nyholm, head of the UN Drug Control Programme in
Colombia.

However, he said the spraying campaign should be supported with other
measures.

"It has to be backed up with alternative or rural development
programmes and it hasn't been so far. I don't think you can fumigate
yourself out of the problem," he said.

Uribe's predecessor, President Andres Pastrana, put more emphasis on
unsuccessful voluntary eradication programmes after protests by
farmers angered by spraying.

The present Government's aggressive attack on drugs is key to its war
against leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries, who use
cocaine to help fuel their four-decade-old war, which claims thousands
of lives a year.

The figure shows much less coca than seen in a US survey released last
month, which estimated a 15 per cent decline in the national harvest,
from 170,000ha in 2001 to 144,000ha last year. Nyholm said part of the
difference was due to the timing of the two surveys, with the US study
based on satellite photos taken in September, compared with the
December UN study.

Cocaine country

* Colombia is home to 60 per cent of the world's coca.

* Colombia has cut its cultivation of coca leaf from 144,807ha in 2001
to 102,071ha last year.

* The United States is the world's largest cocaine
consumer.

* It has poured about US$2 billion ($3.68 billion) into Colombia's war
on drugs.